The Future of Santa Monica Studio

Kinetica, God of War, Journey, Hohokum, and The Order: 1886 — these are just a few examples of our studio’s strong internal and external legacy encompassing a broad spectrum of innovative and diverse titles. As we at Santa Monica Studio continue our odyssey to develop great games for PS4 (No hints!) both with our internal studio and our external dev partners, it seemed befitting to seek out a new unified studio logo. The goal — create a flexible identity for all of our games, a united banner for all we do.

Over one year ago, the creative process of developing our new studio logo began, bringing together team members across different departments of our studio to collaborate and engage in this journey. When you think about establishing a new brand identity, it is about more than an image, it is our promise to our fans that we will continue our tradition of inventive and exceptional games. Now, one year later, we are proud to reveal a logo that celebrates all of our games.

As you look upon this new emblem, though subtle the design may be at first glance, one cannot help but be pulled in to the compelling intricacy of its facets – our new logo is a dynamic ‘window’ into our games. The games we create at Santa Monica Studio become the very essence of who we are as a studio, and vice versa. Our games are the studio’s brand, and now our logo exemplifies who we are.

Our new logo, with its bold, simple structure can become a frame to the world of our games, filled with elements of the game such as key colors, textures, game content and screenshots. When you see the new animated logo boot up with our next external dev games such as Fat Princess: Piece of Cake and Hohokum, you’ll further understand how we crafted a mark that allows our games to visually become part of the brand.

The typography of our new logo is a custom designed font we’ve coined SMS “Vanguard.” It means a group of people leading the way in new development or ideas. As we leave our home of 15 years at Penn Station, and move in today to our new creative home, The Reserve, the very core meaning of our new logo takes on even more significance. We have an incredible future ahead for a new generation on PS4 under this new roof and with our external partners. Now we have a mark that will continue to evolve and expand with every new game from Santa Monica Studio.

I miss the old logo already. You guys don’t need to EA your logo in every game. The old one exclaimed that no mater what you got it was special. Now it is generic and disappears into what ever game is being played. The old one was conforming to any style or creed, it was a symbol of quality. Now I feel it is lost. I got chills just seeing the old logo, because it was a sign of something awesome was about to consume my every waking moment.

SM Studios is one of the greatest development teams in the industry….keep up the excellent work guys, and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let us know what is coming for Playstation 4 at some point in the not too distant future!

@1, I love my Vita just as much as the next, but you can’t be blind bro, the Vita is dead. 1st party AAA titles just aren’t being made for it and Sony’s lack of any true identity (and lack of marketing) for it has been an utter disappointment.

I guess the new logo is fine, but it’s missing the awesome bad-assery of the original. That logo was a real work of art. Don’t get me wrong, this one is nice. But it’s very tame and conservative.

When I start a game and see the original SMS logo, I actually get excited. It has that wildcard element to it. It tells me that what I’m in for is going to be something special, whether I’m playing God of War, or Journey, or Sound Shapes.

The original logo looks like a tattoo I’d get. This new logo looks like a company that I’d work for where I’d have to tuck in my collared shirt every day. And where I’d have to make sure to cover up my tattoo of the other logo.

The new logo is better than the old one, it was like every a lot of logos from the 90’s, grunge splatter outdated pollution.
New one can adapt to the game, works for God Of War or colourful games, its great, congrats!
Now its time to show some internal project, right?
It will be extremely disappointing if nothing shows up at Gamescom…

I just got “God of War Collection” for the Vita and it is AWESOME. It kept me occupied for entire flight to Baltimore. Ya’ll did a great job. I imagine “Ascension” is probably too big to bring to the Vita, but more “God of War” please, for our little handheld…..

Taking credit for Journey? As a wise Vince McMahon once said “No chance in hell”, but we did partner with ThatGameCompany and incubated their studio within ours when they created fl0w, Flower, and Journey. We take pride in our partnership with them and helping to bring THEIR amazing game, Journey, to PlayStation fans. We have an incredible relationship and friendship with TGC.

that’s great SM.. do yall have any plans to update starhawk. I heard awhile back that SM would be responsible for starhawks updates. better yet, I wouldn’t mind if warhawk/starhawk were made into ps4 remakes. those games are still fun and have high replay value.

Hardly the truth – we are bringing two great games to the PlayStation Vita – Fat Princess: Piece of Cake and Hohokum, our two next games with our External Development Team. That’s right, our two next games will both be on Vita. Team size doesn’t matter, in the end all that matters is a great game no matter how small or large the team may be to create it.

It’s a very nice logo! I look forward to all the different color patterns for each game. I hope the Order 1886 will have some cool coloring and maybe you can also allow the text style of your studio name to be modified to a Classical Victorian Style as well, that would be really special (maybe do the same for Hohokum).

Shannon, that is a lovely logo. It manages to be both retro and progressive, while also being adaptable, which is a fitting image for your talented studio. Ignore the haters on here. I also love my Vita, but don’t feel the need to bombard every post with petulant whining. Enjoy your new home, and god speed to SMS’s future projects.

I am the first that buys games from sony, but as much as i love small prods from external team, i would prefer an original Vita God of war.

No offence, but when i see hohokun, and Freedom wars, my heart tells me that Sony japan is playing the game 100% with agame that actually is ambitious, well produce, and EXCLUSIVE.

SCEA never did any game 100% for the vita ( neither for the PSP i would say ) and i found it sad, based on the size of the studio, not to allocate part of this tremendous talent to prove Sony was right to build a beast of portable…

I’m glad you partner with other developers to help them get the most of the Playstation from their games. I look forward to your secret PS4 game. Hopefully, it’s not GOW, I’m past burned out on that series and would like to see what the talents can come up with. Still, I’m sure somebody would like a new GOW.

I’d much rather have a “real” Fat Princess game, than some iOS title. Come on, guys. The Vita is a fantastic piece of hardware, and there are a ton of awesome PSN games that are begging for a Vita version.

The new logo is ok. It looks like pretty much every other modern logo from companies these days: Minimalistic, Apple inspired, sterile, with no personality. The previous logo had character. This one reminds me of the current DC Comics Logo, which suffers from the same problem. It’s not that the logo design itself is bad, it’s very well done. It just lacks personality. Sorry.

With that said, I love SMS, and at the end of the day, I support the kickass games you guys create, and can’t wait to see what you’re cooking up for the PS4 (and hopefully Vita).

I think that the new logo is a great update and matches the types of games you ‘re doing now. Please don’t abandon the more core titles you are known for and while I’m excited for Hohokum, I also hope to see a God of War spin off or something of the like.

I look forward to Hohokum on Vita. I do think that Vita would benefit more from more games like God of War. PSP had two awesome God of War games. It would be nice to see a new God Of War on Vita (not just remote play). I also have a PS4 and would love to see God of War on PS4 as well.

I have been a fan of Sony Santa Monica and the God of War series for a very long time now and this new logo is very welcoming to me i like it a lot…Here’s to hoping for greatness when you guys decide to unveil your new game on Playstation 4

“We are supporting PlayStation Vita – both Fat Princess: Piece of Cake and Hohokum will be on PlayStation Vita”
Sure they will, but what does that have to do with supporting the Vita? Neither of them are going to do particularly much for it – the Fat Princess game is just insulting, since we certainly could have had a “real” Fat Princess title on here.

The PSP not only was able to handle two original God of War titles, but they were apparently good enough to be worth porting to consoles. Unfortunate for the PSP, but it happens.

When the Vita gets the same kind of genuine support from you guys, as opposed to what you’re actually offering, then you can say you’re supporting the console. To say otherwise with what you’re offering is just insulting to us as customers.

Benzitor said it quite well. The West just hasn’t tried with this console. The fact that Japan is offering titles like Freedom Wars, Oreshika, and Soul Sacrifice Delta, with the looming promise of GR2, while the best you guys have is a cheap Fat Princess title in name only and Hohokum, that… says a lot.

I love GOW as much as the next gamer. I by no means would be disappointed in another entry to the series on Vita. However I am glad they are taking a break. It will be all the more welcome when it comes back.
GOW:A was a mess imo and nothing but a money grabber compared to the rest of them. That and a beta test for how a multiplayer might work.
I personally would love to see a new IP from you guys on Vita, made specifically for Vita. I think you could do something really creative there. I was deeply saddened by the news of the cancellation of your unannounced PS4 game. What little was said about it sounded amazing.
I look forward to when your studio gets back to their A game. I too am tired of seeing all these ports for everything, everywhere. Do something new and interesting. Then get back to us with GOW made for project Morpheus.

I really like that the new logo changes color and texture depending on the game. However, I don’t like the “window” part like the GOW example on the article. It might make sense when it is animated, but as an image it doesn’t really look good with something in the middle.

I hope you could show us a video or a gif as an example on how will the logo look like when animated.

Unfortunately I’m going to echo others here and say I’m not happy with SSM’s support of Vita. Whilst it’s certainly better than nothing, a few things stand out to me.

1) They’re both externally developed… so it’s not really SSM proper, is it? It’s great that you’re cultivating new talent and they’re creating brilliant new ideas, but that’s not how you supported PSP.

2) If you’re putting all the XDev stuff on Vita… where’s Journey?

3) A Fat Princess match-three puzzler and not a proper Fat Princess game? That’s not really what people want.

4) No God of War? I know there’s the collection, but that wasn’t SSM’s handiwork. It was Sanzaru.

5) Not a single exclusive SSM game on Vita. If there is, please point me to it. Even if it exists, it’s not on the same level as the two exclusive PSP God of War games. That’s the kind of thing people want. An exclusive God of War game on Vita would be fantastic, but SSM clearly have no interest in making one.

Hi Shannon
I think the new logo is ok. Really in line with the idea of flexibility through the most variable genres. Easily recognizable, clean and objective. But Ive always had a vision of Santa Monica Studios as being an inventive, extremely creative and exceptional studio. And as so, the old ‘artsy’ style just feels right. I Might be wrong as I´m no PHD in Graphics Design nor anything.
Wish you guys good luck and the best possible results with you next projects!